Saturday, June 23, 2007

... but now past the longest day. Winter has set in. Far better to be somewhere in the South of France. Arles perhaps! Cold beer, friends, conversation. No rush. In the second picture, made from the terrace of my studio, the early morning wind drags at the flag on top the Catholic Bishop's Palace. No longer a palace but still the flag. And in the first, my studio and piles of work waiting. A good way to keep warm.......or at least forget about the cold.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

My House My Head opened last night....a lot of people and they seemed to like the pictures. Got some interesting comments about the possible readings of the works.....the balance between content and form and the relationship between the images in the diptyches. Nice. Now on to the the next project!

Monday, June 4, 2007

Spoke at the Auckland Museum today to a small but perfectly formed audience. Spoke about the Seresin (small but perfectly formed) collection of modernist photography. Despite the warning signs Julia Durkin managed to make this picture. Will we be invited back?

Abby, Shelley and I have just finished hanging my show My House My Head which opens tomorrow at Auckland's Satellite Gallery. Have included in the show Martin Parr's image of the back of my head which he made in Rome in April of last year. Shelley made a picture of me looking at me and here it is.......

Sunday, June 3, 2007

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few. SUZUKI-ROSHI. Ain't that the truth!

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Tina Schelhorn is a photography gallerist, curator, critic, festival organiser and friend. Based in Cologne Tina has created a website, imagesagainstwar.com, where she has assembled images from over 650 photographers to make a visual statement against war. The collection is also a touring exhibition and has been shown in cities across Europe and in the United States. Here is one of my images against war, made in Prague in 1997 and from my book Vital Signs. The web-site continues, you can add an image if you wish. Contact Tina at lichtblick@web.de

Mail from Steff Adams in Cologne this morning. Steff atttached this picture of My Head and My House, pictures I sent for her COME HOME exhibition. Now in her studio in her house. Nice. Thanks Steff. The world of photography is very small and there are some great people in it!

Making this picture reminds me of the movie Smoke made in 1995 with Harvey Keitel. Writen by Paul Auster and directed by Wayne Wang, the film is about a small Brooklyn neighbourhood tobacco shop where the proprietor, Keitel, every day makes a photograph looking across the street from the same spot. When I saw the film the audience laughed at this scene and this idea. To me it was the best part of the movie. You can see it's cooler here today and rain is in the air. Winter.

Friday, June 1, 2007

This morning I will go to the Auckland Museum and look at the Seresin collection of photographs which includes images made by Andre Kertez. After having made this picture I think of the pictures Andre Kertez made from his New York apartment window out onto Washington Square. There is a history of photographers looking out their windows and shooting.... after all you can make pictures of anything.

About Me

My pictures explore the strange anthropology of cities. The unusual and overlooked in the human landscape.
I am asking the viewer to question the idea that photographs as documents are complete representations of subject.
I'm interested in the universality of life and the idea of parallel lives - when one thing is happening here, something else is happening over there. The democracy of non-places fascinates me, in the knowledge that inevitably nothing is as it seems.
I work and live between Auckland and Paris.
http://harveybenge.com/
email:harvey.benge@xtra.co.nz